A Touch of the Hand
by Regency
Summary: Distance makes the heart echo and the body hum. The sight of Serena makes Bernie do both. Ficlet. (Sequel to "High Hopes.")


Author: Regency

Title: A Touch of the Hand

Pairing: Serena Campbell/Bernie Wolfe

Summary: Distance makes the heart echo and the body hum. The sight of Serena makes Bernie do both. (Sequel to "High Hopes.")

Prompt: 30 Days of NSFW Berena - Prompt: Skype Sex

Author's Notes: Come flail with me about Berena on Tumblr, at sententiousandbellicose!

Disclaimer: I don't own any characters, settings, or stories recognizable as being from Holby City. They are the property of their actors, producers, writers, and studios, not me. No copyright infringement was intended and no money was made in the writing or distribution of this story. It was good, clean fun.

* * *

Serena swept her wet fringe from her face and dropped her head back, exposing collarbones and the swell of her breasts at the neck of her bathrobe.

Bernie licked her lips and grabbed her new e-cigarette to roll between her fingers. Oral fixation and Serena fixation answered by one object. Regrettably, the taste of sweat beading on Serena's clavicle after her third orgasm wasn't a flavor option. _A marked oversight._

"Anything special on tonight?" Bernie inquired to distract from how she stared at the hint of dark areola visible toward the bottom of the screen. Serena could have tempted a nun in this moment, shower-fresh and dewy-skinned. She could have been dressed as a nun and tempted Bernie; Bernie was too far gone to plead otherwise.

Serena cocked her head a second later. "Chatting with you is the highlight of my day, you know that."

Skype chats had become routine for them. They'd started when Bernie left Serena overseeing AAU and the trauma unit to present at a conference in Birmingham and continued during Serena's suspension following the laptop theft. They were old hands at conversing online, lag and all.

Serena lounging in her toweling robe, heedless of how much skin she displayed before Bernie's hungry eyes, was a separate matter, however.

"What about you? Any 'fun' afoot in chilly Kyiv or has the temperature made the major a dull girl?" Serena drew a knee up to her chest to rub moisturizer into her shin. The hem of her loosely-tied robe rode up her thighs to reveal the shadow of dark hair nestled between them.

Sinking her teeth into her bottom lip, Bernie began dismantling her e-cigarette with the alacrity of a military recruit. "Some reading to catch up on, emails to answer. The usual admin." She glanced from her enforced distraction to see Serena had redirected her attention to her thigh, massaging rich hibiscus-scented lotion into the thick muscle as she hummed in the affirmative. Serena's inbox was the stuff of nightmares.

Serena yawned with a stretch that dragged her robe down her shoulders, revealing more breastbone, a smattering of love bites ringing dusky nipples and speckling her midriff. Bernie swallowed a whine of longing, mentally mapping her efforts of a fortnight ago onto the healing result. The e-cig was a lost cause; she discarded it.

"How are things at Holby?" Her thoughts whirled between lust and redirection, just as when she woke to Serena draped over her, a hand wedged possessively between Bernie's knees.

"Construction accident yesterday. Eight workers plummeted to Earth without a harness between them." Tension pinched her features, indenting the creases alongside her mouth and eyes. Bernie's yearning multiplied; she should have been present to ease her burden.

"Wish I'd been there."

"Me, too."

The moment passed and Serena switched legs, lowering the right to smear the left in lotion Bernie could smell from memory. Its scent had largely faded before Serena undressed herself in Bernie's bedroom, shedding sensible trousers for sheer briefs that did nothing to hide Serena's preference for an untamed bush.

Bernie swallowed, throat dry as Serena opened her legs that bit more to concentrate on her upper, inner thigh.

Bernie didn't usually have an opinion pubic hair, her own tended more from habit than preference. Serena was different, had led a different life visible on her body, from her hips to the tantalizing tangle of hair between them. _Serena's_ hair Bernie had an opinion on, a decidedly positive one arising from the moment she peeled Serena out of her knickers to find her soaking wet.

She'd nosed into Serena's curls, into her slick heat to fulfill a months-old hunger she hadn't given voice to, that she'd called harmless even as she'd brought herself off pretending her own touch was Serena's. Being inside Serena, tasting her, smelling her had approached a state of nirvana Bernie hadn't believed in up to the moment she found it.

Then she'd fled to Kyiv, and here they were.

Serena leant back on her elbows, having completed a lengthy account of today's trickiest surgery a while ago. She was tolerant of Bernie's lapses during their chats, said she could be patient as long as Bernie answered when she called. Little did she know Bernie would always answer; she was irrevocably attached.

Serena played with her robe tie, casting Bernie a coy, expectant glance. Bernie knew where this was going. Had known when she shut the curtains to avoid giving passersby a show and when she silenced her mobile. Stripping down to shorts and a singlet had been anything but coincidental.

Serena was likewise aware. This little strip tease had been for Bernie, to remind her what waited at home.

"I'm coming back, Serena." She'd be useless at emotional declarations once Serena got up to her usual tricks, but she wanted that known.

Serena repositioned her laptop to offer Bernie a wider view. "Good, can't wait to get my hands on you."

"Not just for sex."

Serena freed her belt from its loose knot to let the garment fall away. "How reassuring."

"Not just because I'm attracted to you." Bernie's hand slid into her shorts of its own volition. Her knickers were already soaked through. The first touch sent a jolt through her, the second elicited a moan.

Serena ran a hand down her chest and thumbed a taut nipple. Bernie's mouth watered. "Will talking lead to you in fewer clothes, perchance?"

Bernie shucked her shorts and underwear. She'd been waiting for Serena's call all day. This was their ritual, the only thing keeping Bernie sane—and driving her utterly mad.

Serena spread her legs, allowing Bernie a glimpse of her clit peaking through her curls, swollen and begging for contact. Begging for Bernie's tongue lapping at it quick then slow, circling it as Serena keened. Just as before.

"I want you—us," she amended. Not just sex. Not _only_ sex. "I want us to be together, provided I haven't soured you on the idea."

"You haven't. I want you and that won't change however long you're away." Serena reclined against her pillows like some alluring masterwork given pride of place at a gallery and branded with a sign marked _Do Not Touch_. Bernie longed to defy it.

Serena dipped a finger inside herself and smeared the slick evidence of her arousal over her cunt till she glistened and Bernie could scarcely breathe.

"You know my terms, Bernie. If you want it, come and get it."

Bernie would be home before the month was out.


End file.
